tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post5435442659266464322..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Westminster's Non-Interest in Northern IrelandPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-44189052097152657572017-01-12T18:28:36.158+00:002017-01-12T18:28:36.158+00:00I'm not exactly pointing fingers at this blog;...I'm not exactly pointing fingers at this blog; in the same way North Korea's two oceans, river and minefield make it uniquely placed for dictatorship, so NI's geography and social politics make it uniquely placed for no-one to give a shit.<br /><br />It's testament to how little influence the place has, for example, that the Tories' majority should have made the DUP much more powerful over the last 18 months, but they're still a blip.Lidl_Janusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-47914356896455013472017-01-10T22:06:23.062+00:002017-01-10T22:06:23.062+00:00Guilty as charged. But then again, I'm not a m...Guilty as charged. But then again, I'm not a multi-staffed news media organisation with an audience of millions. Well, not yet anyway ...Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-65669898808163071202017-01-10T20:56:19.349+00:002017-01-10T20:56:19.349+00:00The thing is, I clicked the 'Ireland' tag ...The thing is, I clicked the 'Ireland' tag at the bottom of this article and found 3 articles, including this one, in the 10 years this blog's been going. It's not just the government that doesn't care - none of us give a shit, really, whether it's the government, press, people or even Eire.<br /><br />I suppose there is a question about whether NI is backwards in its social politics and hence votes DUP, etc., or whether it can't progress because the only options are the DUP, etc.Lidl_Janusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-49107444566074980042017-01-10T14:06:40.802+00:002017-01-10T14:06:40.802+00:00A small example of this: when Luftur Rahman was ou...A small example of this: when Luftur Rahman was ousted as Tower Hamlets mayor, one of the main charges against him was 'spiritual corruption' (or some such formulation), because some east London imams had urged Muslims to vote for him. I'd no great love for Rahman, but this irritated the hell out of me, because the Victorian-era legislation that made this charge possible had originally been passed to try and stem the rise of the Home Rule party in Ireland. The presumption in both cases was the same: if Irish Catholics were voting for Parnell's candidates, or British Muslims voting for Rahman, it wasn't because they preferred them to the other candidates, it was because they were mindless sheep in thrall to their clergy. The judge in Rahman's case even made a comment along the lines of 'we can't judge these people by the standards of a metropolitan agnostic elite'. Frankly I don't see any case for disbarring Rahman because he was supported by imams unless you disbar Tories because they were supported by the Express; as far as capacity for rational or critical thought goes, the most hidebound religious believers can't be much worse than Express readers who take it seriously.<br /><br />Anyway, I made this point in a Guardian thread, and straight away there was somebody saying 'we can't have this, we don't want our politics to end up like Northern Ireland!' I had to point out to them that if people in NI had been mindlessly in thrall to Catholic, Anglican or Presbyterian clerics, they would have been significantly less likely to support the IRA or the loyalist paramilitaries. Paisley is the only real exception, but even then the great majority of his voting base was based on secular concerns, and they paid no intention to his invective against line dancing and other such evils (the UVF members who loved Paisley for his sectarian rhetoric typically never ventured near a Protestant church). <br />Ednoreply@blogger.com